Looking from Canada to the United States, across Niagara's Horseshoe Falls

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Liberal health-care: once, free for all; now, a free-for-all

Don Meisner wrote in “We spend more on health care, but where is it going?”, (St. Catharines Standard, Apr.9, 2008):

“Re: Blame hospital woes on Bill 26, The Standard, April 1.

Stanley Laugher should blame our health-care woes on Bob Rae. When he was premier, he gave the nurses a huge raise without the proper increase of funds to hospitals.When Rae left office he left an $11-billion deficit and we were in a recession. Premier Mike Harris turned that around and even cut taxes and gave us a rebate.The current government was allowed to add $1.5 billion to the deficit and blame it on Harris.In four short years, the Liberals have increased spending by close to 50 per cent and have given us the largest tax increase - which they don't call a tax increase.Being a senior, I have not had a break in taxes since Harris was premier. What the province spends money on in its budget doesn't affect me very much except on health - and the health-care dollars don't seem to be targeted very well as there is still a lot of debt at hospital boards throughout the province.”

I wonder if St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley will bother to answer the above, another health-care letter from one of his constituents?

Wait a minute – Jim’s busy as a crime-fighter now – thinking about confiscating vehicles and suspending the licenses of people caught with illegal guns. Just a thought, Jim: how about supporting tougher mandatory, no-plea-bargain jail time for criminals possessing illegal weapons?

When they’re in jail, they won’t need the car, nor the license. Does Bradley support the federal government’s crime bill? Has Bradley badgered the Liberal-dominated senate to quickly pass that legislation? Liberals: soft on crime?...feh!

But hey, ‘coincidentally’ rolling with Toronto mayor David ‘Hiring-more-cops-is-too-expensive’ Miller’s gun-ban call, Jim Bradley's Liberals can look like they're actually doing something, when they're not: smoke and mirrors. (Much like the Liberal 'review of reviews' at the NHS)

It’s better to whine about the federal government’s supposed-lack of a ‘national gun ban’, than for Ontario Liberal MPP’s to explain why newspapers such as the St. Catharines Standard carry headlines like “Hospitals may have to cut costs” (Apr.9, 2008), or “Many hospitals forecast deficits”, (Toronto Star, Apr.9, 2008).

Liberal MPP Jim Bradley continues to hide and smugly avoid explaining why an increasing number of his government-run health-care system’s hospitals are in deficit.

Can Jim Bradley or Liberal Health Minister George Smitherman explain what Smitherman means when he says (in regards to hospitals, which, to balance their (Liberal) budgets, are considering laying off nurses and closing beds) that “the alternative is to have a free-for-all where the hospitals spend whatever they want and send the bill at the end of the year, and the people’s health-care system can’t be sustained on that basis” ?

Can Bradley or Smitherman provide any examples of where the Niagara Health System, for example, is flagrantly spending its Liberal-rationed budget?

Where is the NHS spending money unnecessarily? Where is this alleged “free-for-all” taking place?!

The much-vaunted medicare-monopoly scheme so-extolled by the Tommy Douglas crowd was all about sending the bill to the government!!

It was all about health-care being (supposedly) free for all - wasn't it?

The David Peterson Liberal government’s extra-billing ban was all aboutsending the bill to the government!!

The McGuinty Liberal’s Commitment to the Future of Medicare Act was all about sending the bill to the government!

When were we notified that the “people’s system” (as Smitherman calls it) now consists of imposed cost-containment cuts, budget limits, rationing, and premium increases – and all that within a restrictive monopoly where patients are legally banned by Liberal legislation from obtaining alternate private health coverage?

Another story, “Liberals misled voters over coverage of prostate tests, opposition charges”, (St. Catharines Standard, Apr.10, 2008) reported that during the 2007 election, the Liberals coyly weren’t specific that the timing of their promises to cover PSA tests wouldn’t start until January 2009. Smitherman “admitted there hadn’t been a lot of publicity about the timing. “I’m not sure if it was announced before,” he said. Oh, how convenient!

Yet somehow, Smithermanissure that the “people’s system” is in a free-for-all spending frenzy?